My name is Randolph West, and I am an actor, filmmaker, musician, author, and technologist based in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. You can find out what I’m thinking on my personal blog, or SQL Server blog.

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Filmmaker

 
I make things to entertain people. Here are links to my IMDb page, my actor reel, and my voice reel.

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

Before the pandemic, I was part of the Voice Acting Power Squad, and we met every Monday and live streamed on Twitch and Facebook.

In Calgary I’ve appeared on stage with Morpheus Theatre, and directed for the stage with Confederation Theatre. In Johannesburg I was heavily involved with Franklin Players until emigrating in 2010.

This is an incomplete list of things I’ve done for the camera:

 

Technologist

 
Since January 2022 I am employed full time by Microsoft in the SQL Docs team. Prior to that I was an independent technology consultant, specialising in the Microsoft Data Platform with a focus on performance tuning, disaster recovery best practices, and data recovery. I was a five-time recipient of the Microsoft Data Platform MVP Award between 2017 and 2021.

I have written some free stuff that you can see at GitHub. I also write software in C# and Visual Basic.

I sit on the boards of several companies in Canada and South Africa, designing and building systems for companies you’ve never heard of.
 

Author

 
I have co-authored five books so far. I have also contributed to numerous publications over the years.

 

Musician

 
I love music of almost all genres, and I’ve often been heard saying there are at least two songs from any popular performer that I like.

Between 2016 and 2018 I started playing with Garage Band loops, and eventually composed some tracks that are available on SoundCloud. I’d personally classify these under Electronic Dance Music (EDM), but there are trance, house, and other influences in there.

Additionally, I have released a single called Turkish Lick, which you’ll find on iTunes / Apple Music, Spotify and various other places.
 

More about me

 
In the 1990s, people visited this site for my Humour page. For a while I was known for a Windows-based application called ShutOff 2000. I also created South Africa’s first short URL generator, several months before Twitter was invented.